Culture Area: The Plateau

Culture Area: The Plateau

The Plateau Distinguishing features of the Culture Area: • Riverine settlement patterns • A diverse subsistence base of andramous fish, game and root resources • Kinship ties through intermarriage • Institutionalized trading partners and established trading patterns • Relatively uniform mythology and 

The Kootenai River

The Kootenai River and its Environs The subsistence round:  Spring: Salmon, sturgeon, suckers whitefish and trout 

Caught in wicker baskets, traps and weirs. Bitter root and camus root gathered.



Summer:



Usually 2 bison hunts, one in June the other in mid summer. Join with others such as Coer d’Alene or Spokane for hunt which would last for weeks.

Fall:



Deer, elk, caribou, moose beaver muskrats, wolf, bear lynx hunted for meat and furs. Women gathered berries such as huckleberries and chokecherries, pine nuts, wild onions and tree lichen. Plants for food, medicine and miscellaneous household uses.

Winter:



Bison hunted on snowshoes

The abundant environment made famine unusual, when occurred was considered supernatural.





A modern calendar of Subsistence

Social life and Organization • Dwellings: Summer teepees were covered with brush,

skins or matting.Inwinter, extended families would share a longhouse.

• Marriage: generally informal, but regulated by taboos, i.e. in-law avoidance. Brothers and sisters-in-law participated on joling relationships. Polygyny was practiced, also sororate and levirate.

• Societies: Exact number unknown. Principal societies T include: • “Society of Crazy Dogs”- Believed to have been given power by dog ancestors. Warriors who policed and maintained order on bison hunts. Also officiated at Sundance ceremonies. Wives served as “she dogs”.

• Crazy Owl society- Based in shared supernatural experiences, primary function was to ward off epidemics.

Early 20th Century Kootenai

Political Organization • Band leader (general authority): Position may have originated after contact, a respected, generous individual believed to hold spirit power, made decisions and appointed temporary leaders for specific tasks,i.e. travel leader. • Activity leaders (specific authority): fishing, hunting and fowling leaders chosen for spiritual power, officiate over activities and related rituals such as first fruits. • Social ranks- Band leader, warriors, those with power from a vision, those without spirit power. Very few individuals did not have spirit power, considered unfortunate. • The two bands of Marsh people are believed to have only fought defensive wars. The touching

Romantic Image of Kootenai Woman

Mythology • Pre-human World: populated by spirits in various forms, gave knowledge to humans. • Connections: to spirit world highly valued. Particular powers were accorded to specific animals. Coyote is the trickster. Owl is a negative spirit, scares children who believe she could capture them and keep them in her nest. A water monster is believed to have caused the great flood of ancient times. • The ancient monsters are believed to no longer be on earth, having disappeared when humans arrived. •

Coyote the trickstertransformer

Rock Art Depicting a Successful Vision Quest circa 4,800B.C.

The Eagle as Guardian Spirit

Twins are believed to hold special spirit Powers. Often Officiated ay Salmon Ceremonies

Mountain Sheep art may have been a form of sympathetic magic

Spedis Owl Protected bodies of water

The Petroglyph Salvaged shortly before the Columbia River flooded the region in 1956

Spiritual beliefs and Practices • A world of earth, water and sky • Vision quest undertaken by both boys and girls, usually from age 7 to adolescence • Purification ceremonies, then child sent into wilderness, nude at night. If first attempt not successful, advice sought from sweatlodge and ritual repeated. • Spirit helpers remain with an individual for life. As death nears they leave the body, announcing the impending death. When the soul leaves the body it may head west, to encircle the world and return from the east, or it may hover and enter the body of a baby abs it is born.

The Vision Quest

Cover of Book: Indian Rock Art of the Columbia Plateau by James D. Keyser

Ritual Ceremonies • “Putting up the blanket”-a collective meeting of 2 or 3 shamans, who ask questions of spirits • Grizzly Bear Ceremony-prayer for protection from bear’s anger, offerings made to bear, offerings to bear buried. Participants feed on berries. • Sun Dance- Spring welcoming of the sun, distinguished by acts of self mutilation by potential warriors • Jump Dance- a “new years” dance to balance earth and bring good fortune • Medicine Doings- a modern form of “putting up the blanket” – a night ceremony conducted by shamans for healing, divining the future and solving problems

Sun Dance

Sun Dance

Evidence for cultural change prior to contact • Lewis and Clark- 1805. Noticed use of trade goods- beads, kettles, Spanish coins and a knowledge of “white men”. Occasionally Plateau natives were captured as slaves and returned home several years later- may have brought knowledge from the east. • Lewis and Clark also noted that some natives had pockmarked faces and were told that disease had come “a generation earlier” • It is believed that the early epidemics increased native preoccupation with death and spirit power. Archaeological discontinuities give evidence that epidemics may have begun as early as the early 1600s. • After the Pueblo revolt of 1680, many horses were set free and traded northward by Ute, Kiowa , Comanche and others, reaching southern Plateau in early 1700s.

Impact of the Horse • Expanded range and content of seasonal round and trade (bison hunts) • Accelerated spread of epidemics • Item of wealth and prestige, factor in differentiating status • Brought increased numbers of participants for rituals and ceremonies • Provided incentive for increase in warfare • Factor in tribe formation, as bands joined together as composite bands and then tribes • Long distance trade routes proliferated, extending into Spanish California (by late 17thC.) • Trading patterns and partners became established both in other regions and among various Plateau tribes

Other Factors in Culture Change • Iroquois migration in 1790, had been converted to Catholicism and shared this knowledge • Volcanic eruption in the Cascades in summer of 1800, darkened sky and showered ash over region for several days • New religious practices formed, often based in resurrection experiences of a charismatic religious leader • early to mid 1800s, circle dances often included making the sign of the cross, kneeling and the confession of sins • Initial white/native trading initiated in late 1700s. Fur trade was established by 1811-12 • Increasing numbers of missionaries were arriving at trading posts to convert natives • Fur trade brought competition for furs, leading to jealously guarded hunting areas, inter-tribal

Some consequences of Trading • Traders offered rewards to those assisting them, creating inequality within groups • Political influence based on spirit power vied with material wealth from outside • Fur trade increased demand for new technologies. Traditional spear hunting gave way to guns and traps, increasing yield and diminishing supplies. Metal fish hooks, new paints and dyes, fire-making equipment, etc. began to take hold within cultures. • White traders offered goods at prices lower than other tribes, disrupting trading patterns and former allies. • White trading presence allowed for other whites to move in, especially missionaries.

Factors in Culture Change, continued • •

• • • • • • • • • • • •

By 1840s fur trade nearly ended-number of pelts had dropped significantly, world market for beaver pelts had plummeted, increasing distrust among natives of fur traders, Hudson Bay Traders began exploiting other resources such as timber and fish for export From mid 1830’s onward Catholic missionaries in region (1840 among Lower Kootenai, who were converted by 1845). Protestants less successful at evangelizing, in 1847 massacre of Dr. Marcus Whitman by Cayuse of southern Plateau, who identified the white outsiders with disease 1862- devastating smallpox epidemic reduced native population by approximately one third(60,000-40,000 in Plateau region, D.Walker) The failure of native rituals to protect the people, and of shamans to cure the disease, increased interest in what appeared to be the more powerful ways of whites. Whites did not fall victim to epidemics as did the natives. They used this to their advantage. Priests especially abhorred traditions of shamanistic healing, polygamy and gambling. Among Lower Kootenai, converted native leaders such as Three Moons, and especially his successors, Thomas and Moses, used coercive techniques-flogging, confinement, etc.- to force natives to abandon traditional spirituality. Many Plateau tribes confined to reservations after 1855, resentments grew and brought a revival of traditions, altered by historic conditions and circumstances. Smohalla, from eastern Washington rejected white ways, initiated Dreamer religion, known as the first Ghost Dance-strong influence throughout region, spread from tribe to tribe into Plains and westward to 1855 11 treaties negotiated in Plateau and reservations established, Lower Kootenai encouraged to move onto Flathead Reservation, many would not leave homelands. 1855-1855 marked by warfare throughout region. Reservations mandated agriculture, occupational training, hospitals, schools, etc. Some received alloted lands through Dawes act 1887 What happened in 1974? (3day war, see previous post) Growing tourist industry and casino economy Ktunaxa increasing used as self designation

Smohalla

Riverine wildlife refuge Kootenai Tribe

Kootenai Tribe Working to Restore Sturgeon Populations http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=7175&Itemid=1

IGRA

http://www.nigc.gov/LawsRegulations/IndianGamingRegulatory Act/tabid/605/Default.aspx

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that states had no regulatory control over gaming conducted on Indian land (California v. Cabazon). Following that decision, several states, led by Las Vegas gaming interests, reversed their opposition to IGRA and urged its passage as a way to have some control. Congress consented in 1988 and IGRA, after being amended to give states more regulatory control though compact negotiations, became law. IGRA recognized the right of tribes to conduct similar gaming on tribal land in states where such gaming is permitted outside the reservation for any other purpose.





IGRA grew out of challenges posed by FL Seminoles conducting high stakes bingo games on reservation lands

